Cherie Chung Chor-hung was born in Hong Kong in 1960 to a family from Boluo, Guangdong, of Hakka ancestry. After secondary school she worked in a jewellery shop and in 1979 entered the Miss Hong Kong pageant, which led her into show business and a brief stint on the variety show Enjoy Yourself Tonight. She soon moved into films, taking the female lead in Johnnie To's directorial debut The Enigmatic Case (1980). Her fresh screen presence drew attention, and she went on to work with a new generation of directors in The Story of Woo Viet (1981), Lemon Cola and The Trail (both 1982). Invited by Cinema City in 1982, she starred in the nostalgic comedy It Takes Two, followed by films such as Mr. Handsome (1987) and The Eighth Happiness (1988), and appeared alongside Brigitte Lin and Sally Yeh in Peking Opera Blues (1986). Signed by Shaw Brothers as a contract player in 1982, she headlined titles including Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (1983), Maybe It's Love (1984) and Women (1985), and earned her first Hong Kong Film Award Best Actress nomination for Behind the Yellow Line (1984). Her range spanned comedy and romantic drama, and she appeared in Yonfan's Immortal Story (1987) and Last Romance (1988), as well as in the hits The Happy Bigamist (1986) and Golden Swallow (1987). For An Autumn's Tale (1987), directed by Mabel Cheung and co-starring Chow Yun-fat, she won Best Actress at the Asia Pacific Film Festival and was nominated for both the Hong Kong Film Award and the Golden Horse Award; the film itself won Best Picture and took over HK$25 million at the box office. In 1989 she was again nominated for the Golden Horse Best Actress for Wild Search. After marrying advertising executive Michael Chu in 1991 she retired, her final films being Once a Thief and Zodiac Killers that year; Chu died of cancer in 2007.
She won Best Actress at the Asia Pacific Film Festival for An Autumn's Tale, a romantic drama that still grossed over HK$25 million, showing the genre could be a box-office draw. Moving easily between comedy and serious drama, she became one of the defining female faces of 1980s Hong Kong cinema.
Achievements
- 1979 · Entered the Miss Hong Kong pageant and show business, later taking the lead in Johnnie To's The Enigmatic Case.
- 1984 · Earned her first Hong Kong Film Award Best Actress nomination for Behind the Yellow Line.
- 1987 · Won Best Actress at the Asia Pacific Film Festival for An Autumn's Tale and was nominated for the Hong Kong Film Award and Golden Horse Award.